Apart from AUthors and the TItles of both
individual items and the SOurce items in/on which they appear, the database
includes such details as the year of original issue (or of composition
or first performance), publishing company (record label, film production
company, TV or radio channel, sheet music publisher, etc.), catalogue
number or ISBN, as well as the physical source of the music (single, EP,
LP, CD, cassette, VHS, DVD, off-air recording, sheet music, pocket score,
song book, etc.).

The data covers many different types of
music. There is a preponderance of popular music references (popular songs
and dances, pop, rock, ‘folk’, film and TV music, etc.). A fair amount
of euroclassical music is also covered, as are hundreds of ‘world’
and ´traditional’ music recordings.

I started input in 1984 and continued to enter data regularly
until around 2006, since when I’ve relied increasingly on online sources
of information. Its primary aim was to help me quickly locate recorded
music for teaching and research purposes. One central problem was that
my sort of music analysis requires rapid access to a body
of music so vast that I could never afford to own it all on either commercially
available carriers, or, latterly, as paid-for downloads. Nor did the institutions
I worked for own, nor could they reasonably be expected to commercially
acquire, so many recordings. That’s why a large number of items referred
to in the database had to be recorded on to (in historical order) tape,
cassette, videocassette, writeable CDs and DVDs, and finally, when home
computer disk space media became large enough, on to hard drive. Cataloguing
all those recordings was essential so that they could be retrieved and
heard as quickly as possible, for example, in preparation for music history
or analysis classes.

With the scholarly imperative of thorough
source referencing, I tried to ensure (not always successfully) that publishing
details for each recording were included in the database. That enabled
me to generate reference appendices for books and articles. I still use
the database for that purpose.

In short, the database was started in
the early days of home computing long before the advent of MP3s, iPods
and smartphones with their audio- or video-file meta-data, and long before
the appearance of online music databases like discogs.com.
Beyond its use to me personally as a means of locating recordings or sheet
music in my own possession, it is of use to anyone needing to produce
correct references to music and unable to find the requisite source details
elsewhere.

Why online?

With the advent of MP3 meta-data, online
discographies, etc., there is clearly less use for this sort of musicalia
database than there used to be. However, even an excellent online discography
database like discogs.com
(I use it ‘all the time’) has its problems. One reason is that it’s
geared towards the record collector rather than the scholar. That means
it can be difficult, if not impossible, to find reference to an original
recording of a pop song when no subscriber to the service is currently
offering that item for sale. My database certainly has its weaknesses
(see Limitations) but I always tried to include
the original year of recording or composition, or its first performance.

Moreover, this database includes reference
to material not covered in other online databases, for example, music
from a wide range of non-Anglo cultures, as well as from TV and radio
shows, from films, etc . It is in no way a replacement for existing online
databases but it is, I believe, a useful complement. Another advantage
is that it’s also much easier to cut from this database and paste requisite
source details into a reference appendix or footnote than from other online
offerings.

Another, more prosaic, reason for putting
this all on line is that the software I’ve used to create the database
is very old and has become increasingly incompatible with each system
change I’m expected to appreciate (and pay for) in terms of an ‘upgrade’
rather than as an unwelcome imposition. I need to retrieve data on operating
systems that don’t let me run my old database software (FoxPro v.2).
Hence all this data in a single HTML file that anyone can access anywhere.

The data is presented as a single large HTML file (c.
11 MB). That means it’s not an actual database but a set of two listings
consisting of material gathered from the original database’s five related
tables (7.6 MB + HTML commands). The two listings are by:

Names, in alphabetical order, of physical
SOurces of the music, from 10 cc via Abbey
Road,
Dhrupads, The Mission, San Remo and String
Quartet to Zydeco. This is the primary listing containing
all data. It is referred to as the Main Listing or
the SOurce Listing.

Names, in alphabetical order, of those involved
in the production of the music (AUthors), from Abba via Bach,
Beatles, Chaplin, Chile (trad.), Dekker, Ellington, ... Morricone
and Mozart ... to XTC, Yothu Yindi and Z Z Top.
This is called the AU(thor) Listing.

Main (SOurce) Listing

By SOurce item is meant the physical object containing
the music as sound or notation, i.e. vinyl record (single, EP, LP), (audio-)
casette, CD, DVD, videocassette (VHS), video CD, DAT tape, MiniDisc, DVD;
pocket score, song book, sheet music, etc. The carrier type is presented
in square bracket as the last data item relevant to the entire source
source object, e.g. ‘[LP author]’ as in the following entry:

- 10757 is the unique number of this SOurce entry.
- Gisela May is the main artist on this album. [v] is short for vocals
(see abbreviations)
- Gisela May sjunger Brecht is the name of the album (‘sjunger’
= sings) and determines where it’s
placed alphabetically —between Girls Just Want To Have
Fun and Giù la testa! (‘Duck, You Sucker!’).
Names of SOurce items are bolded.
- Caprice is the record label and RIKS LP 30 the record’s catalogue
number.
- It was issued in 1974 (I think: hence the ‘?’)
- Brecht wrote the words [w] and Eisler the music [m] ‘xwos’, i.e.
eXcept Where Otherwise Stated) .
- The music was on an LP (vinyl) album previously shelved chez Tagg in
alphabetical order of main AUthor (see Carrier types
).

The music [m] for Kleines Lied, track 4 on the
A side (a4), is by Paul Dessau while tracks 4 and 5 on the B side (b4,
b5) are by Eisler (the ‘xwos’ of 8 lines up). Additional TItle data,
like the fact that songs b4 and b5 are two of Eisler’s 4 ’Proletarian
Mother’s Lullabies’ is presented in square brackets. Track durations,
where available and/or relevant, are also added between square brackets.

Single-title SOurce objects appear as follows, for example:

A World Without Love.
Columbia DB 7225 (UK) (1964). [Single S009]

Peter and Gordon [b]: A World Without Love (Paul
McCartney [w,m]; John Lennon [w,m]) [2:38]

This tune, issued on a Columbia single in 1964,
was recorded by Peter and Gordon [b=band/group/ensemble] with words and
music [w,m] by Lennon and McCartney. Its duration is 2 mins and 38 seconds
[2:38].

AUthor (AU) Listing

An AUthor is any individual or any group of individuals
involved in the production of the listed item. It might be whoever wrote
the music [m], or who performed it as a vocalist [v], band [b] or instrumentalist
[i], or recorded [rec] or produced it [prod], or, if a film, its director
[dir] or its main actors [act], etc. A list of AUthor function abbreviations
is provided here.

This AUthor listing is extremely basic and exists for
the sole purpose of quickly finding AUthor names and linking them to details
of music with which they’re associated. For example:

The following carrier types are of interest solely to
myself because they contain home recordings. They’re typically compilations
for teaching or research purposes and can generally be ignored by other
users of this database: [Cassette
...], [CD] (without preceding publishing data), [Compendium ...], [DAT
...], [Ex libr] or [XL], [MiniDisc ...], [MP3 files] [Reel tape], [VHS
+ number].

Location in/on SOurce object

The location of individual TItles (tracks, songs, DVD
chapters, etc.) are given after the bullet (●) at the start of each
TItle entry. Many location data types can be ignored
(e.g. counter positions on cassettes, track numbers on DATs or MiniDiscs)
but the following can be useful. For example:

It’s also worth knowing that simple numbers like ‘●
01’ can indicate: [1] track numbers on CDs or MiniDiscs; [2] start numbers
on DAT tapes; [3] chapter numbers on DVDs; [4] page numbers in song collections.
It’s always clear from the SOurce object carrier type ([CD], [DVD],
etc.) which of those four is relevant.

Navigation

At any time, clicking

“”
takes you to the top of the whole file, also the top of the Main Listing
(SOurce items)

“”
takes you to the top of the AUthor Listing

When browsing you can skip directly to items starting
with any letter of the alphabet by clicking the relevant letter. You can
then skip directly to any of the entries shown under each letter of the
alphabet. For example, clicking ‘R’ at the top of the AU listing then
lets you choose if you want to go to Rachmaninov, Raksin, Ravel, [Otis]
Redding, [Cliff] Richard, Ritchie, Roberts, Rodgers, Rolling [Stones],
Rota, Rózsa or Russel. From there you can scroll through the material.

“” or
“”
appears quite frequently (typically 3 hits of the PgUp or PgDn key) on
the left. Clicking the arrow lets you immediately re-orientate yourself
in this huge file.

Abbreviations

Author function abbreviations are placed in square
brackets after the individual’s name.

Limitations, anomalies, errors and conditions

As explained above, the data was produced and arranged
for my personal use. It’s on line because I think it can be of use to
others, despite its limitations, anomalies and errors. Here are the main
issues.

The file itself can take several seconds to load.
Once loaded, however, navigation by clicking, scrolling, paging, searching,
etc. is quick enough.

I’ve noticed quite a few typos. Sorry.

I’ve also made some errors. Unfortunately I only
have time to correct the most serious ones. Please contact
me if you find anything seriously wrong.

Some AUs are entered inconsistently so that their
alphabetical listing is incorrect, for example [1] Rubinstein as just
Rubinstein and as ‘ Rubinstein Anton G’; [2] The Band with (correctly)
10 entries under B for ‘Band’ but 1 under T for ‘The Band’.

There are many duplications of material due to changing
technology, for example the contents of vinyl recordings, tapes or cassettes
transferred or re-recorded, for reasons of practical convenience, to
CD and/or to DAT and/or to MiniDisc and/or to MP3; or videocassttes
repurchased as DVDs, etc. I can only apologise but I needed to find
the music on those carriers at different times in my career.

Some entries aren’t just duplicated so much as new
compilations for presentations I’ve given over the years, for example
about Abba’s Fernando, the Kojak theme and Morricone’s
music for The Mission.

Some items were added as SOurce objects without listing
their contents. Better to have the basic details than nothing, I would
argue. Those entries often show ‘_New TI_’ as their only entry.

There are a lot of SOurce items listed as ‘misc.’
(miscellaneous) and ‘unid.’ (unidentified); there also many AUthor
items listed as ‘Anon’ (anonymous), ‘unid.’ (unidentified) and
‘Trad.’ Sorry, but a few of them have been quite useful as IOCM
in semiotic music analysis.

I acquired the habit of including the basic story
line of films I had on videocassette or DVD. Most of those story lines
are copied and pasted from allmovie.com
and some of them are quite long. Sorry. I used the story lines to remind
me of what each film was about when thinking about its music.

The material listed in the database reflects personal
as well as professional interests. There’s some comedy, including
Monty Python and Benny Hill, a fair number of Manga movies and several
rail journey videos.

Conditions

Anyone can use this material for personal and/or non-profit
aims provided that:

I’m not held responsible for any unwanted effects
of the material

I’n not held legally responsible for errors found
in the material

I’m not expected to provide any support about using
the material

I’m consulted before anyone else uses it in the
construction or development of an online resource, or for purposes of
financial gain